In a recent article, “Paranoid Hollywood Wracked by Hack Attacks,” author Marc Graser reported that “[h]ollywood is experiencing the revelation that everything it saves on a computer is available to prying eyes at any time. Nothing is safe. Paranoia is running rampant. Through legal (and freely accessible) software, anyone with a computer and an Internet connection can enter studio databases containing the most private information.” (Reuters distributed Graser's article on Aug. 8, 2001.).
Graser continued “[r]ecent breaches have allowed hackers to exchange: rough-cuts of Warner Bros.' “Ocean's 11” and Columbia Pictures' Jet Li actioner “The One”; emails among executives at Warner Bros. TV; scripts transferred from production companies such as Bruckheimer Films; databases at agencies like Creative Artists Agency, Endeavor and William Morris; personal records at law corporations and accounting offices; and digitally stored media at New Line and VDI Multimedia.” (See id.).
Piracy is raking showbiz in the tune of $1 trillion in damages annually. The film industry is losing $2.5 billion a year to piracy and the music industry is losing an additional $4.1 billion per year. (See id.).
Yet the biggest threat comes from money-hungry professionals, and company employees are increasingly to blame. See id. Graser reports that most companies do not realize that 90% of the attacks performed on the systems they try so hard to protect are the result of inside jobs.
A solution is needed to help curve the onslaught of movie theft and piracy, particularly theft from film studios and editing facilities.
Digital Watermarking can provide a deterrence and tracking solution.
Digital watermarking technology, a form of stenography, encompasses a great variety of techniques by which plural bits of digital data are hidden in some other object, preferably without leaving human-apparent evidence of alteration.
Digital watermarking may be used to modify media content (audio, video, images, etc.) to embed a machine-readable code into the media content. The media may be modified such that the embedded code is imperceptible or nearly imperceptible to a viewer, yet may be detected through an automated detection process.
There are many processes by which media content can be processed to encode a digital watermark. In media (e.g., digital audio or imagery—including video), the data may be encoded as slight variations in sample values. Or, if the object is represented in a so-called orthogonal domain (also termed “non-perceptual,” e.g., MPEG, DCT, wavelet, etc.), the data may be encoded as slight variations in quantization values or levels. The present Assignee's U.S. Pat. No. 6,122,403 and application Ser. No. 09/503,881 (now U.S. Pat. No. 6,614,914) are illustrative of certain watermarking technologies. Of course, artisans in the digital watermarking field are familiar with other technologies that are suitably interchangeable with some aspects of the present invention.
Digital watermarking systems typically have two primary components: an embedding component that embeds a watermark in the media content, and a reading component that detects and reads the embedded watermark. The embedding component embeds a watermark pattern by altering data samples of the media content. The reading component analyzes content to detect whether a watermark pattern is present. In applications where the watermark encodes information, the reading component extracts this information from the detected watermark.
One problem that arises in many watermarking applications is that of object corruption. If the object is reproduced, or distorted, in some manner such that the content presented for watermark decoding is not identical to the object as originally watermarked, then the decoding process may be unable to recognize and decode the watermark. To deal with such problems, the watermark can convey a reference signal. The reference signal is of such a character as to permit its detection even in the presence of relatively severe distortion. Once found, the attributes of the distorted reference signal can be used to quantify the content's distortion. Watermark decoding can then proceed—informed by information about the particular distortion present.
The Assignee's U.S. patent application Ser. Nos. 09/503,881 (now U.S. Pat. No. 6,614,914) and 09/452,023 (now U.S. Pat. No. 6,408,082) detail certain reference signals, and processing methods, that permit such watermark decoding even in the presence of distortion. In some image watermarking embodiments, the reference signal comprises a constellation of quasi-impulse functions in the Fourier magnitude domain, each with pseudorandom phase. To detect and quantify the distortion, the watermark decoder converts the watermarked image to the Fourier magnitude domain and then performs a log polar resampling of the Fourier magnitude image. A generalized matched filter correlates the known orientation signal with the re-sampled watermarked signal to find the rotation and scale parameters providing the highest correlation. The watermark decoder performs additional correlation operations between the phase information of the known orientation signal and the watermarked signal to determine translation parameters, which identify the origin of the watermark message signal. Having determined the rotation, scale and translation of the watermark signal, the reader then adjusts the image data to compensate for this distortion, and extracts the watermark message signal as described above.
To provide a comprehensive disclosure without unduly lengthening this specification, each of the patents and patent applications cited in this document are hereby incorporated by reference.
In one implementation of the invention, we provide stenographic markings for studio rough cuts. The marks provide nearly imperceptible identification and forensic tracking clues.
In another implementation, content is marked with serialized or unique codes efficiently using different objects for the content and watermark data via object based encoding systems such as MPEG-4. The watermark object can be efficiently created if the original compressed content is analyzed and perceptual model results and calibration signals that are constant when a watermark payload is changed are saved. This or another forensic embedding system can be used to track content as well as lock content to a recipient. For example, the content may be rendered only if the individual or their rendering device has a secret code that coincides with the embedded ID.
With the foregoing by way of background and summary, the specification next turns to various digital watermarking improvements. It will be recognized that these improvements can typically be employed in many applications, and in various combinations with the subject matter of the patent documents cited herein. These improvements will be more readily apparent from the following detailed description, which proceeds with reference to the accompanying drawings.